‘Weak’ Pécresse sinks further as Right implodes
Conservatives have lost moral compass, say French voters, as former mainstream favourite slumps to fifth place in polls
With France’s mainstream Right-wing candidate languishing in fifth place just a month before presidential elections, you might have expected panic to be creeping into Valérie Pécresse’s camp.
Yet her Les Républicans Party (LR) is clinging on to the hope of a last-minute surge, with its message this week strikingly unconcerned, boiling down to: “Keep calm and carry on.”
Calm was not the first word that sprang to mind, however, at a raucous and ill-tempered TV debate between Ms Pécresse, 54, and her hard-Right rival Eric Zemmour, 63.
She claimed her anti-immigrant rival would be “an impotent president” and Vladimir Putin’s lackey while he called her a technocrat and a clone of president Emmanuel Macron.
At one point the slanging match became so heated the presenter exclaimed: “This is not a playground.”
The French press was almost unanimous in finding that Ms Pécresse got the upper hand with one pundit calling it a “technical knock-out”.
Her entourage is praying the debate and the unveiling of her programme on Monday will prove a turning point. “In the past 48 hours, something has happened,” claimed Christian Jacob, LR president.
Yet that does not seem to have transpired. The latest polls show Ms Pécresse now in fifth place on 12 per cent ahead of the April 10 first round after being overtaken by Leftist firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, on 12.5 per cent.
Mr Zemmour is on 13 per cent, with Marine Le Pen heading for the runoff on 17.5 per cent against Mr Macron, way out in front on 30 per cent.
While the president’s rivals have scrabbled for electoral crumbs this week, he was playing père de la nation and European statesman hosting EU leaders at Versailles Palace for crisis talks on Ukraine. The problems facing France’s conservatives are evident on the streets of Neuilly-sur-Seine.
A leafy suburb west of Paris and one of France’s wealthiest towns, it should be a bastion of support for Ms Pécresse. It is renowned as the longtime fiefdom of Les Republicans’ former president Nicolas Sarkozy, mayor for almost two decades.
One might have expected locals to view the woman running for the party he created as their natural choice – all the more so because Ms Pécresse, president of the Paris region was born in the town.
But many queuing for groceries, fish and cheese at the Friday food market, are uninspired by her campaign.
“Pécresse is too weak,” said Henri Bourgue, 73, a retired automobile engineer. “The Right has lost its compass. This campaign is having trouble taking off and is overshadowed by the war in Ukraine. I fear that there is no solution other than continuity.”
Isabelle de Veyrac, 62, who works for the local parish, said Ms Pécresse was “more my cup of tea politically but I don’t think she’ll come to much”. Even Mr Sarkozy isn’t backing her. She pointed to the fact that the former president has failed to support his former minister and bad-mouthed her in private as “all over the place”.
Ms Pécresse’s “major drawback is she’s too much of a technocrat and lacks vision. You can’t run France like a business,” said Bernard Filipetti, 70, a retired video producer.
Mr Zemmour, the other candidate often mentioned here, has drawn mixed reactions. Yesterday, while campaigning in Moissac, southwestern France, he was egged again.
Some in Neuilly-sur-Seine called him a “flash-in-the-pan” and even a “clown” who, like Ms Le Pen, lacked the cogs to run the “machine” that is the French administration.
Others complained he was unfairly portrayed by the Left-leaning media and posed important questions about immigration and national identity.
“When you listen to journalists, he sounds like a b-----d and a fascist but when you listen to what he says I find him sensational,” said Olivier Cahart, 70, a retired electronics businessman. “He talks a lot about France.
“If you ask most people whether Napoleon came before or after Louis XIV, they don’t know.
“We are losing our sense of history and he wants to bring that back.”
Not everyone has given up on Ms Pécresse, however. Her most influential local supporter is local mayor Jean-Christophe Fromantin, an independent Right-winger who ended the Sarkozy clan’s Neuilly reign.
Mr Fromantin said Ms Pécresse’s campaign was not dead yet: “Given the margin of error of polls and the number of candidates polling above 10 per cent, qualification for the second round could be as low as 15 per cent. So the die is absolutely not cast today.”
He said he backed her because she had surrounded herself with mayors and other local officials who inspired the most confidence in France whereas Mr Macron et al had a far more “vertical” vision of politics.
He was scathing, however, about all major candidates’ lack of vision.
“There is no ambition for a new project for society in the campaign and that stands for everyone.”